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. which is after all the very crisis of a wild self-preservation. when it loses any relation to others. the imagines of the crowd and power. By subjectivity I do not mean the subjectivity of thought. Nevertheless. that is. a wild survival. from experiences of the real. and which you call in your terminology the moment of survival. which does not tie thinking in advance to the approved rules of the sciences and does not respect the boundaries imposed by the division of labour. For a thinker like myself. moreover. with which you are concerned?
Downloaded from http://the. points to this.
Adorno: I think so too. however. is enormously sympathetic to me-but I mean by subjectivity the point of departure from the subjects under investigation. the reader cannot quite shake off the feeling that in the development of your book the imagination-the representation of these concepts or facts. analysis would say. whether he calls himself a philosopher or a sociologist.2
Da~d
Robens
longer convinced of some of his results and must oppose some of his special theories. there is a methodological problem which is important for our intention of determining the place of your thinking.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. in relation to the images. I believe that our agreement here is not by chance but points to what has become acute in the crisis of the contemporary situation. of self-preserving reason and discovered in the process that this principle of self-preservation which finds its first classic formulation in the philosophy of Spinoza. the concept of invisible crowds. which plays a major role for you.sagepub. just as I would. the situation of survival in the exact sense that this motif of self-preservation. But for the way he tackled things. is what I would call the subjectivity of your approach. put more sharply. that is. what strikes me first of all about your book. the basic concepts you employ-crowds and power-ultimately from real conditions. I would like to register that there is a very strong contact between us. I still have the deepest respect. is transformed into a destructive force. not so very differently from Freud. I am very conscious that you derive. the two go together-iS in fact of a greater significance than they are themselves: for instance. and what is-if I may say so openly-something of a scandal.
Adorno: Precisely at this point which you just raised. You did not know our work and we did not know yours. from real crowds and real powers. the point of departure from forms of representation (Vorstellungsweisen). when it becomes as it were "wild". the subjectivity of the author-on the contrary: precisely the freedom of a subjectivity.
Canetti:
I am pleased to hear that your own thinking has led to similar results and that the fact of our independence adds to their cogency. And I would like to put the really simple question to you to give our listeners a clearer idea of what is actually involved-how do evaluate the real significance of crowds and of power or the bearers of power in relation to the inner representation. On the other hand. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment Horkheimer and I analyzed the problem of self-preservation.

about which I would perhaps like to say something briefly: for anyone who has occupied himself with religions. I stress that crowds always want to grow. We know the role that the idea of the devil. A medieval Cistercian abbot. I think that the individual human being feels threatened by others and has for this reason an anxiety about being touched by something unknown. All human beings have experienced this. There are countless examples of the human belief that the whole air is filled by these spirits. I think this is a very concrete approach. we need only recall that in the modern world we also know such invisible crowds. I talk about the feeling of eqUality within the crowd and many other things which I do not want to mention now.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. stated that when he closed his eyes he sensed devils around him as thick as dust. Devils are thought to occur in endless crowds. it starts from a concrete experience which everybody knows from the crowd. What is remarkable is that this fear disappears completely in the crowd. that these spirits occur in massed forms-this carries over into our universal religion. It is a really important paradox. At this moment the individual no longer fears contact with others. Here I would like to say that invisible crowds only appear in the short chapter 14 of my book.sagepub. The concept of the book is. Human beings only lose their fear of being touched when they stand closely packed together in a crowd. I would not for this reason regard them as unreal. Then in chapter 14 I come to the concept of invisible crowds. as real as it can be. I speak of open and closed crowds. which is preceded by 13 other chapters. His fear of being touched reverses into the opposite. There are very many testimonies in the Middle Ages. Now. like to become part of the crowd. that this compulsion to grow is decisive for them. since these people do in fact believe in these crowds. when they are surrounded on all sides by other human beings. After all we all believe in the
Downloaded from http://the. and especially with primitive religions. which human beings cannot actually see. and that he seeks to protect himself by all means from being touched by the unknown by creating distances around himself. but they are perhaps just as dangerous and aggressive and are feared by us just as much. These invisible crowds playa major role in religions and in the conceptions of believers. that you try not to jostle against others. We need only think of the spirits which play such a role in primitive religions. so that they no longer know who is pressing against them. Adorno
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Canetti: I would like to take some time to answer this question. by striving not to come into too close contact with other human beings. for them they are something wholly real. of angels played in Christendom. I believe. In spite of all preventative measures human beings never lose completely their fear of being touched. in the following chapters I examine other aspects of the real crowd. I believe that one of the reasons why people like to become a crowd. 2009
. that you do not like being jostled by others.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. is the relief they feel at this reversal of the fear of being touched. in which I deal with the real crowd very intensively. Richelin. it is very striking the extent to which these religions are peopled by crowds. You refer to my concept of invisible crowds. I begin with what I call the fear of being touched. In order to understand this fully. They are no longer devils.

I think. that a certain primacy of the imaginative. And for that reason I would say. By crowd symbols I understand collective units. which can be everywhere. Only very few people have looked in a microscope and actually seen them but we all assume that we are threatened by millions of bacilli. heaps of many kinds. let us say. wheat. I believe that you would concede that we can speak here of a kind of reality of these invisible crowds. the forest. define themselves as English or French or German at the beginning of a war.
Canetti: No. (Adomo: Absolutely!) When human beings who identify themselves With a nation at an acute moment of national existence. I have arrived at the establishment of a concept. We cannot jump over our own shadow.
Downloaded from http://the. And this has an extremely powerful effect in their minds and is of the greatest importance for their actions. the treasure. I certainly would not say that. Now these are surely units which actually exist. These would be invisible crowds.
Adomo: Please excuse the pedantry of an epistemologist in my reply. which seems important to me: the concept of crowd symbols. the ocean.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. these imagines possess as collective entities a direct reality.4
David Roberts
existence of bacilli. which does not yet distinguish so strictly between reality and representation. and their real existence does not mean that they have become objectively real. perhaps go this far with me in seeing the undeniable effectivity of such crowd symbols. heaps of the harvested. The fact that in archaic thinking. of the transposition into the world of representation is dominant with you in relation to drastic unmediated reality. Nevertheless. In order to give a practical example. in primitive thinking no distinction is yet made between the imagination of such djinns. namely that these images. present in the individual. To these units belong representations like fire. according to what you have said so far. I would say that these crowd symbols had decisive importance for the formation of national consciousness. comparable for example with the reality of the masses in modern mass SOCiety. there is a difference between primitive consciousness. You would. 2009
. since I do not believe-this is perhaps not unimportant for clarifying your intentions-I do not believe that you espouse the position represented by Klages on the one hand and by Oskar Goldberg at the other extreme. then they think of a crowd or a crowd symbol as that to which they relate.sagepub. and our representation of them plays an important role. which in a certain sense I would call real. which are always there. First of all. and the developed Western consciousness which rests in fact on this separation. they are used in the mind of the individual as crowd symbols. or whatever spirits it may be. which tells us in God's name that the world is not peopled by spirits.-for example. which admittedly do not consist of human beings but which are nevertheless felt as crowds. It is necessary to explore these individual symbols and show why they have this function and what Significance they acquire in this function.

I would not hesitate for a moment.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. which is your primary concern no less than mine. even if in a hidden way. But may I also say: even after this explanation. for example. should lead anyone to think that the real meaning of crowds is not decisive and above all important for me. even in these forms of domination and tyrannization of the masses consideration of the real interest of the masses and of their real existence always asserted itself. the weight. that in the course of a investigation over many years I had arrived at other aspects of the crowd.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. who has experienced first wars. A contemporary of the events of the last 50 years since the outbreak of World War One. in a wider sense social-psychological. Or are the real. as a crowd symbol you have hit on something really essential. Adorno
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Adorno: Here I agree with you completely.sagepub. always latently p0ssessed what the sociologist Arkadi Gurland has called a compromise character. I think that with your discovery of the forest. in your conception of society and the crowd.
Downloaded from http://the. This fact is the starting point of my whole investigation. it seems to me that such categories represent a real advance. which is especially important. cannot help feeling the necessity under the pressure of these events of trying to come to terms with the question of crowds. that is to say. simply the enormous pressure exerted by the gigantic numbers of human beings (even though the organization of society simultaneously supports and hinders the preservation of life)-is not the pressure of these real masses on political decision-making more important for contemporary society than these imaginary. the significance of the real masses is incomparably greater. matters to which you refer? Let us not forget that it turned out that even movements. that is. I would in fact go as far as to say that the dictatorships we have experienced are made up entirely of crowds. the actual masses. I consider these things eminently fruitful. which were apparently extreme dictatorships without any democratic consideration for popular opinion. and without the deliberate artificial excitation of ever larger crowds. already transposed into the imagination. I would of course say that the value. 2009
. in which the concept of the symbol is not by chance central. What really concerns me-to which you could perhaps reply-is this: how do you actually evaluate. as an imago. this real weight of the masses in relation to the whole realm of the symbolic?
Canetti: Yes. then revolutions. the power of dictatorships would be completely unthinkable. such as Fascism and National Socialism. that without the growth of crowds. inflations and then fascist dictatorship. What I would like to ask you is something very simple and straightforward-a question also to be put analogously to psychoanalytically oriented social theory-namely whether you believe that these symbols are really crucial for the problematic of contemporary society. it still remains the case that your interest is directed to categories which have already been internalized. I would be very disappointed if the fact. Compared with the somewhat bare archaic symbols we find in Freud and on the other hand the somewhat arbitrary archetypes ofjung.

as you quite rightly recognize. To this extent I think there exists a connection between the growing symbolic significance of these things and their reality. comes from the fact that we are no longer dealing with the original circumstances in which they were effective. I would say. It is not possible to investigate the crowd only as it appears today. and what is invoked from a distant past no longer possesses any truth but is transformed into a kind of poison through its untruth in the present.sagepub. not in the sense of compromise but of the Hegelian concept of mediation. 2009
. and then by Freud. I would say perhaps that one of the essential points-a point which always recurs when we consider crowds today-are the archaic elements we find in them. It seems to me that the fatal. is not directly what it once was.e Bon in his Psychology of Crowds.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. It is presumably only through the growth of these two correlative categories that human beings have come to resign themselves to their own disempowerment. has been repeatedly recognized in the tradition of modern social psychology-first of all by Gustave I. of the deeply entwined categories. even though it appears clearly enough and in multiple form. should be assumed: precisely the real pressure. especially when they are short-Circuited. deadly threatening colouring which concepts like leader or crowd so readily take on today. However. where he described precisely these archaiC. I would like to stress a nuance: and that is. where these internalized categories acquire a bodily meaning and are completely identified with. If I may make a theoretical point. I do not know whether you agree with me that one must pay special attention to these archaic elements as something particularly important. in my opinion. The symbolic significance of these categories has thus also increased. has increased to such an extent that the resistance. The archaism. I believe it is also important to derive it from what has long been there and has often appeared in different forms. who in his. the self-assertion of the individual has become infmitely difficult. by giving them meaning as something numinous. perhaps even irrational and therefore holy. which emerges in crowd formation. a kind of result. but is now. irrational modes of behaviour in crowds and then derived them from the somewhat problematic and vague category of suggestion. it would be that a kind of mediation. where I would correct you in terms of my position. made up of the real situation of human beings and of the world of images. But by and large I would agree with you.6
David Robens
Adorno: This seems to me of fundamental importance for a proper understanding of your intention. Canetti: There is much that needs to be said here about the details. what then returns under pressure. very significant short work Group Psychology and Analysis of the Ego set out to underpin
Downloaded from http://the. now they are invoked as it were. namely the symbolic and the irrational. to which they recur or even regress. crowds and power. such that human beings retreat as it were back into archaic phases of their psychic world. Adorno: I would of course agree with you.

The famous models in the ethnological literature for such small groups are the bands of the Australian aborigines. they do not want them to escape. we need to introduce a new concept.
First of all I would like to go back to the question of the form which the crowd takes in primitive societies. What is striking is that out of these bands. which removes him from the group. 20. One kind of these bands is for example the hunting pack. This situation. under certain conditions of life. several must come together in order to hunt down this animal. cannot lead to the crowd formations which we know today.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W.sagepub. perhaps for the first time. At first they try to hold back. Adorno
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Le Bon's description of crowds with a genetic-psychological derivation. is already there in early societies: when one pack fights against another. if you could indicate the specific differences of your own theory to these authors. which reconciles him
Canetti:
Downloaded from http://the. where there were precious few persons? I am glad that you brought this up. when a member is torn from them through death. who wander in search of food. small excited groups form. Packs occur in societies which consist of small groups. I think. or the appearance of a large number of animals is involved. They want to hunt down as many as pOSSible. indeed enormous dimensions. in the interest of a topological determination of your thinking. which have a powerful goal and seek this goal with great energy and in extreme excitement. and this brings us to the war pack. 2009
. 30 human beings. to keep the dying person in the group. then something emerges which we know now from war in sharply increased. some of only 10. For this reason they come together and set out to hunt the one or many animals. as it is quite clear that primitive SOCieties. is what I have called. which consist of only very few persons. a lamenting pack. Since you stand in dispute with this after all very considerable tradition of social thought-to which the American sociologist McDougall also belongs-it would be good.
Here. The third form. however. The second pack-which is also obvious-is the one directed against another pack. The concept of the hunting pack is so evident that we do not need to say much about it. which is closely related to the state of excitement of our modern crowds but which is different in that it is limited as opposed to the unlimited growth of our crowds. There is a very large animal which individuals cannot master. and by the pack I mean a small group of human beings in a special state of exCitement. they could disappear again or a time of drought could return and there would be very few animals. which is not so evident. Where there are two packs which threaten each other.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3.
Canetti:
Adorno: I have been wanting to raise this very question: can we even speak of crowds in primitive SOCieties. then the group usually comes together to take cognizance in some way of this death. I speak of the pack. When a small group loses a member. when he has died they will turn to some rite.

but determined by a series of qualitative aspects because it is related to the model concept of the pack. perhaps more from religions than from the very mild form which it now takes socially. where it appears as production. That naturally goes back to the early example of the hunting pack. which prevents him from becoming a dangerous enemy of the group. however. but it must be added that the first three have a kind of archaic effect. Everything connected with this I term increase packs. which have a purely archaic character. as if it were only a matter of numbers. It is not only an archaic form but has undergone qualitative changes. The increase pack. I believe it is important-I do not know how far you would agree-to distinguish sharply the forms of the pack. and when one speaks of the importance of the relations of prodUction. but that there is an interdependence between them.sagepub. has transformed itself. when people suddenly attack a person (Adomo: a pogrom pack!). All these connected phenomena I term lamenting packs. Now we come to the forth form of the pack. Of these categories of the pack the first three are very clear. and it also seems to me that their effect reaches into our time. they could hunt more. always wanted to be more. I think it is important to stress this. from those which have entered modern life and have become a really contemporary part of our life. intensmed and higher developed stage of hunting-lament and what you call increase. It was of course completely dependent on changes in the relations of production. These four forms of the pack seem to me to be firmly established. There is something essential here: for you the concept of the crowd is not a purely quantitative concept.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. as is often the case today. The hunting pack has become the lynch mob in our modern world. it is all too familiar. If they were more. who existed in very small numbers. 2009
. to such an extent that we do not recognize it in our society. It plays an enormous role in Christendom and in other religions. We know war. even though the more orga-
Downloaded from http://the. We know lament.
Adomo: Let me try to express the core of what you said. As Stefan George put it in a well known poem: your number is itself sacrilege. which is perhaps the most interesting for us: human beings. Hunting pack and war pack merge with each other. such as hunting. warwhich is a somewhat more rational. We know cases of lynchings. whereas the sacrilege does not lie in the number but in these qualitative aspects which you have emphasised. If they were more. then I believe we think above all of everything which relates to the increase pack. they could maintain themselves better against another group attacking them. Increase does not only mean increase of human beings but also the increase of the animals and plants from which they live. as it shows how superficial the current phrases about the age of the masses and so on are. There are innumerable rites and ceremonies which serve increase.8
David Roberts
with his fate. I think they can be demonstrated in many ways. although you would surely agree with me that they cannot be statically separated from each other so Simply. There are innumerable very important ceremonies and there is scarcely a people on earth which does not know them.

Canetti: If I may interject. We have to conSider that the commandment to increase. Nevertheless.
Adomo: Exactly! This is. of a state and an organized religion as compared with natural conditions?
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Adomo: But isn't this a very late stage of an already organized. of property which can be handed down. which equates the number of descendants with the number of locusts as something to be wished. that is. inherited-only at this point can it become a commandment to create heirs. may your sons and nephews follow in endless line. We have here the large number. above all Judaism and Catholicism. I have a certain difficulty with the concept of the increase pack. institutionalized SOCiety. who will take over this property. 0. there is a poem about locusts.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. defended itself. join. The wings of the locusts say: unite. unity. the continuity of the descendents. that is fetishized. To be honest. I would like to present two: In the Shi-King. I think. One has to assume that in primitive stages of the development of humanity-I am thinking for instance of the construction of a stage of hetaerism-the question of human increase was given no value. the enormity of their number is exactly what one wishes for one's descendents. 0. I would like to read it to you: The wings of the locusts say: join.sagepub. I would then like to say something about what I see as very fruitful in this category of increase. That the locusts are used here as a symbol for the descendents is particularly remarkable. I would rather be inclined to say that this commandment to increase is of historical origin and is tied to the category of property. It would be interesting if you could first say something about this. Only when there is something like property. may your sons and nephews be for ever one.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. yes!) It was a question of exacting revenge on a person who had perhaps committed a murder. briefly: I am convinced that the war pack emerged originally from the hunting pack. the classical songbook of the Chinese. This poem is short. represents the negation of the latter's immediacy. three wishes for the descendents. (Adomo: emerged. as the whole will to increase seems to me a bit problematic. that this commandment occurs precisely in those religiOns which are distinguished from the mythical or magical natural religions. unite. set off in order to revenge this murder. to which the murderer belonged. which we have in the great religions. a second pack was formed and we already have the model of the war pack. which I have collected. compared with what we could call the spontaneous hunting pack. because locusts were of course feared. the general opinion of ethnology on this point. If the group. Adorno
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nized war pack. 2009
.
Canetti: Of the great number of examples. As a result this urge to increase appears as secondary not as primary. and so a group formed. that must be preserved.

gets up.. In the following night more of these sons fall from his armpits. and he sends his sons to find bandicoots. which are suddenly generated in gigantic masses. But there is also the opposed element. notices that he is surrounded by an enormous number of bandicoots. The Shi-King is very old. The relation between these bandicoots and his sons is very interesting. Today at any rate it appears to be the case that the idea of increase-which has of course clear and familiar civilizational and economic grounds-is both desired and feared. I believe that we can speak here of a very strong urge to increase. the amorphous multiplicity of forms. he has been sleeping for an eternity. which were published only some 15 years ago. and it seems to me hardly possible any more to separate the primary and the secondary. He sits up. This is especially interesting because it concerns totemic myths. is represented lying at the bottom of a pond in eternal sleep. then later a large number of sons are generated from him.10
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This could perhaps be said. feels hungry. cooks it in the fierce sun and eats it-eats.) That is perhaps true. old Korora. but . of bandicoots and of sons. which senses the dan-
Downloaded from http://the. Thus he produced food and also his own sons. The human beings. And so it continues every night. I want to tell one of them. The sun rises. Many similar traditions could be added to this myth. This applies to single individuals and families as well as peoples and humanity as a whole. it presumes a highly developed and indeed developed hierarchical society.sagepub. Finally 50 sons emerge together from his armpits.
(Adorno: Adorno:
Canetti:
I would say here that we are dealing with something very ambivalent-it would take us far afield and I don't think we can discuss this fully here. There is certainly an archaic element which pulls in the direction of the manifold. and this totem Signifies that bandicoots and human beings. and in general it doesn't really help in these questions to ask what is primary and derived. He is the ancestral father of the bandicoot totem.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. changes shape and becomes a human being. he grabs in all directions. who grows and is recognized by him as his son the following morning. 2009
. are so to speak the younger brothers of these bandicoots. The one feeds on the other. All the same. who belong to this totem. one of the creatures which has originated from him. are related in the closest fashion. He lies down to sleep and that night a bull roarer falls from his armpit. And that is why I would like to give you another example. One could call him a crowd mother. his human sons. cook and live from. It is his first son. since he is composed. But he is still asleep. one could say. which they catch. seizes one of these bandiCOOts. the father. We have here a kind of double increase: first he is the ancestor of the bandicoots. It is about the origin of the bandicoot totem and it says: the ancestor of the bandicoot totem. that is.. One day an enormous number of bandicoots come out of his navel and armpits and he is completely surrounded by them. The younger Strehlow recorded them among the Aranda.

like me. But I would like to broach an issue in your theory of increase which appears very fruitful. in part surely imaginary.
Downloaded from http://the. in the whole unconscious. the question of the difference between our approach and your theories about the crowd and those of Le Bon and Freud. We probably could not understand why this culture of production for the sake of production flourishes everywhere on earth. That is why I consider your viewpoint altogether productive. the institutions in which humanity lived and still lives. Adorno
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ger to its survival in the present forms of organization and beyond that is plagued by the doubt. that is. which is their own product. it has become fetishized. It already occurs with the ancient Persians and it is also to be found among peoples with a strong tendency to increase. that every additional human being on the horizon is at the same time a threat to the survival of the rest. That this question is not asked. seems to me to indicate that this apparatus of production can mobilize enormous libidinal energies in the masses. May I come back to the question which I put to you earlier and to which your have not as yet responded. Otherwise how could the simple objection fail to be raised: why should we produce more and more when what is produced in reality has long been sufficient to satisfy our needs. the increase of goods.
Adorno:
In this ambivalence there is certainly the deep consciousness. that under present conditions the apparatus of prodUction.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. which are after all well known.
Canetti: If I may add something: this idea of an overfilled earth is also very old and mythical. archaic inheritence we have.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. one is inclined not to place this urge or will to increase at the beginning. 2009
. that is. You show in one part of your book that production. on the one hand that all possible life has the right to exist. even if. and thereby the whole relations of prodUction. are in reality dragged along by the machine. which it can use for its own constant and ultimately very problematic expansion. Now with an economic theory of society one can give rational or pseudo-rational grounds why this has happened. given the forms. but on the other hand. however distant.sagepub. can only keep itself going by creating ever new circles of purchasers for its products-a remarkable reversal of the primary and the secondary. Your theory fills a very good function here. if it did not appeal so strongly to something in human subjectivity. independent of the different political systems. This ambivalence has not only psychological but equally real grounds. who always emphasized this desire for increase. whether our old earth will be able to feed the measureless increase of humankind. for whom supposedly this is all there. In general the fruitfulness of a theory lies to a large extent in the minute differences which separate it from related theories. with the result that human beings. as you do. has become a kind of self-purpose today or as I would say.

There are. It is extremely important in an army that five persons can be split off by a command. The flight crowd is still in a crowd state. The crowds he describes are really the crowds which arise only in quite specific situations such as conflagrations. People in one place are suddenly threatened by .com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. Sometimes. it can become a crowd.. like a fleeing herd. You will rightly object that lynching crowds are incited by demagogues . quite consistently from his standpoint.sagepub. but in principle an army is not at all in my sense a crowd.
Canetti:
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Adorno:
Le Bon is not actually a theory. which is not yet panic and is still a unity. to whom the crowd relates. The direction is: away from danger! All the same. which can be indiVidually explained and which are very important. however.12
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Robens
Canetti:
Perhaps you will permit me to stress more the differences between Freud's theory and mine. a flight crowd.
Adorno:
That of course is connected with the theory of the primal father.. He always sees a single individual. Another aspect. That he selects two hierarchically structured-let us call them groups-in order to explain his crowd theory.. I do not regard the crowd as hierarchically structured..
Canetti: In relation to Freud. here I think we must distinguish between a flight crowd and a panic crowd. as I find . when they all flee together. one is the church and the other the army. theatre fires and similar occasions and which are not prototypical for the concept of the crowd as such. It has a direction. I believe that the lynching crowd does not always have a leader. An army is a collection of human beings. who are held together by a specific structure of command in such a way that they cannot become a crowd. A description of a relatively narrow phenomenon. seems to me very characteristic for him. 300 can be deployed as a unit somewhere else.
Canetti:
Adorno:
No. I agree that it would be better to discuss Freud rather than Le Bon. An army is not a crowd for me.. which I would emphasize as an important difference. and here I think you will agree with me. there are some observations to be made: Freud speaks of two concrete crowds. rather a description. in the moment of flight or perhaps of a very violent attack. is that Freud actually only speaks of crowds which have a leader. It is thus quite significant that Freud exemplifies his theory through the army. has no leader. at certain moments. An army can be split at any time. the father of the horde. 2009
. also crowds of quite a different kind: for instance.. Panic is a breaking apart of the crowd when each individual simply wants to save his own life. This he conceives as the decomposition of the crowd. The flight crowd. it shows quite explicit crowd phenomena.

neglecting essential historical modifications. Everything is in commotion. Only then perhaps will we be able to have clearer ideas about identification. and what really occurs between a model and the person who follows a model. As a result his social psychology remains somewhat abstract. a genetic interpretation of I. let alone a leader. I fully agree that army and church cannot simply be subsumed under the concept of the crowd. which they want to enjoy together in a state of joy and excitement. leads him time and again to the invariant fundamental quanta of the unconscious. one can't even talk of a direction. there are others. This was already the case during the pogroms of the Crusades.sagepub. You were surely rather surprised that such a large pan of my book is devoted to the problems of metamorphosis. there are still funher objections. It is actually a commentary or an interpretation. There is above all the question of the concept of identification. I believe there is a lynching crowd before and beyond these directed. Adorno
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Adomo:
Above all in history it has always been the case that precisely lynching crowds were not spontaneous but manipulated.e Bon's.e Bon's phenomenology of the crowd.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. You won't find it in my whole presentation of the crowd. I try to do without identification. Freud says at many places in his work when talking of identification that it is the question of an exemplary model. not really clear. I have really made it my task to investigate all aspects of metamorphosis completely afresh. 2009
. rather they are reactions.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. Nevenheless.
Adomo:
He worked from it. I consider this concept to be insufficiently reflected. for the very reason that Freud's basic tendency to replace the theory of society by individual psychology extended to the collectivity. leader-related crowds. This is an example which has nothing to do with a leader.e Bon's description. You will recall that I also presented the feast crowd. in which the archaic crowd aspect. too imprecise.
Canetti: I would also say: even if we take this restricted case of the crowd. I believe. in order to be able to determine what a model actually is. of the child for example identifying with his father and wanting to be like his father. But what really happens in this relation to the model has never been shown exactly. There are other examples. The second volume will contain much more on metamorphosis. reactive formations. too dependent on I. Now this is certainly right.
Canetti: That is certainly correct. which Freud had in mind is also
Downloaded from http://the. As long as this is not the case I am inclined to avoid the whole concept of identification.
Adomo:
Your critique seems to me to be extremely fruitful and correct in many points. Freud's concept of the crowd is. I have mentioned only a few points. which Freud sought to explain according to I. The father is the model. It is a question of a gathering of people and of a great amount of harvest produce.

It would be good if in conclusion if you could say a few words about your theory of the command. However commands are given. I believe that the threat from an animal. as Freud thought during the First World War. A lion in search of prey announcing itself through its roar causes other animals to flee. May I draw your attention to a very Significant work on the feast by the French cultural anthropologist Roger Caillois. then we can see that precisely socalled crowd phenomena cannot be cOl1ceived simply as primary manifestations of the archaic crowd. This is very important. which feeds on other animals. in which he attributes the feast to a reactive formation. however distantly. Commands are conveyed without human beings perhaps being aware that they are also receiving a death threat. This seems to me to be the germ of the command. since this model has been employed and has become intrinsic to our SOCiety. And through the execution of death sentences. (Adorno: Every execution is directed to those who are not executed). even making a duty of precisely what is otherwise forbidden. immediate physical violence. And if we take this further. but essentially negated and contained by hierarchy and a certain kind of rationality. If I may say something else. which is of course the inseparable corollary of the crowd theory. what made the greatest impression on me in your book is something which belongs less to the theory of the crowd than to the theory of power. Willingly. The warning is given.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. to mention a furCanetti:
Downloaded from http://the. the threat of annihilation. barbaric societies. And then. In this sense what you would call the feast crowds would also be an historically dynamic and not a primary phenomenon. leads to their flight. I think that only when we are clearly aware that society. to a reversal of hierarchically strict rites within very rigid. that is.14
David Roberts
present. As far as the feast is concerned. can we fully grasp the frightful interlocking of survival. has as part of its substance the threat of death. but consist of reactive formations. and of death. namely your theory of the command. and thus the self-preservation of human beings itself. It is originally a flight command. as you call it. if you do not do what is demanded of you. it is certainly quite right that we cannot speak of leadership here. They can only assure their own institutional survival by reversing their rules and by allowing in certain exceptional situations. common to most societies. the threat of death stands behind them. in the way that you have formulated it. 2009
. regressions to social stages which are actually no longer compatible with the present. although it can't be condensed to a few words: I derive the command-biologically-from the flight command. as it developed later and became a very important institution for us. which seems to me to be so eminendy enlightening and essential because you spell out-and here I would like to recall our Dialectic of Enlightenment-what otherwise largely disappears behind the facade of SOCiety.sagepub. then what is happening in this execution will happen to you. the command always regains its frightfulness. I mean that behind all socially approved and expected forms of behaviour there stands.

by naming as it were the magiC chann of this spell which has bewitched human beings. examination of the command led me to see that the command can be divided into what constitutes its propelling force. which I call the sting of command. 2009
. to do again what has been done to one. Adorno
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ther point. It is obvious to what consequences that leads. your book is striving-if I have understood you correctly-to serve this purpose.com at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on December 3. We would like to thank Hanser Verlag and Suhrkamp Verlag for permisSion to translate. and another part. Human beings want to free themselves from these stings. Die gespaltene Zukunft (Hanser Verlag. they feel oppressed by these stings. because he is suffocating from his stings of command. That is particularly important.
Translated by David Roberts
This 1962 radio discussion was published in Canetti. and it remains in the person who carries it out. so that it might one day be possible to escape from this spell. the sting of this command remains in him and this sting is completely unchanging. above all because it expresses in a very original and unconventional way that the threat of direct violence lives on in all mediations. which leads to its execution. Nietzsche's wonderful idea.
Downloaded from http://the. Every attempt to extract oneself from this sphere is caught in the spell of this mythical cycle. its content. its motor energy. perhaps he doesn't think about it. in order to be able to get rid of their stings. and they often seek situations. They are all there in them and they all want to come to light again through a kind of reversal. It is simply a fact that every human being who lives in society is full of stings of whatever kind. However. By naming it. Perhaps he doesn't know it. by naming this spell in your book.Elias Canetti: Discussion with Theodor W. This sting has exactly the form of the command. refers exactly to the state of affairs of which you speak. They can amount to so many that the individual is driven to quite monstrous deeds. that human beings must be redeemed from revenge.sagepub. 1972). A person who carries out a command is not happy about it.
Adorno:
This is something extraordinarily thought-provoking. Human beings can store up stings and these may come from commands which they received 20 or 30 years ago. which represent an exact reversal of the original situation of command.